Food And Talk Served Here

Onion Parathas

Now, these, I can tell you, are recollected with so much of embarrassment and so much of laughter (depending on which side of the joke you are in)!

Like, the lunch I gave to my hubby’s colleagues. I served dry, tough rotis with a lukewarm curry, followed by a totally sour curd rice. The over enthusiastic me, had double cooked the rotis and forgot to add milk to prevent the yogurt from turning sour.

The saving grace was the brownies. Though, by the end of the meal, everyone was skeptic to try them. Then finally with a ‘how much worse can it get’ attitude, they plunged in and were pleasantly surprised. Then they all watched a movie together to get over the lunch experience and went back home with a ‘I will never come here again’ promise to themselves.

I haven’t gotten over the experience yet. And to this day, I order food from outside if someone is visiting. That way, if the food is not good, I too can join in everyone’s “what the food!” cursing with an open heart.

Add the flour, salt and a tsp or two of oil in a wide opened bowl. Add with one cup of water and bring together the flour to make a dough. Add more water (in quarter cupfuls) as required. Knead the dough to the chapati dough consistency and keep aside for 20 minutes.

For the filling, chop the onion and coriander leaves fine. Add the chili powder, salt, chat masala and kasuri methi to ti. Spread out in a piece of tissue paper or old news paper for half an hour. This is to dry out the filling as the onions will let out water. I forgot to do this and ended up with small sized parathas as you won’t be able to roll them properly.

Divide the dough into small lemon sized balls. You might get around 6-8 dough balls. Dust them in flour and roll them into 4″ circles with a rolling pin. Keep a tablespoon of filling inside and bring together the edges into the centre so that the filling is enclosed.

Dust will flour again and roll them out again into 7″ circles. Do not exert too much pressure on the rolling pin, as the filling might break out of the parathas.

Heat a pan and cook the parathas on both sides adding half a teaspoon of ghee on both the sides while cooking. Serve hot with yogurt and pickle or with a simple dal.

Don’t fret so much, it happens to everyone. I once double cooked pasta for a potluck and felt the kick of embarrassment when I sat down to eat. I stopped making pastas for potlucks. I get so tensed if I have to make pasta for anyone other than my family (though I make it al dente at home)…BTW, the parathas are looking awesome. Somehow my eyes are glued to the forks, so unique.
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